Posted by Christopher Lyons on Tue, Jul 13, 2010
My blogs are biased, I’ll unashamedly admit it. I talk an awful lot about Apple, sing their praises, and flaunt the fact that their mobile technology products are changing the game. Well, pretty soon, with the help of Google, there’ll be a new game changer in town; you. You’ll become your own game changer, optimizing everything for yourself and for your business.
“How”, you ask?
Simple.
I first came across this factoid in the New York Times. The article states that “Google is bringing Android software development to the masses.” Starting yesterday, Monday, July 12, 2010 – Google will be offering a tool that allows for the easy creation of apps for Android phones. Need an app that will help you optimize your business processes, or maybe one that will help you stay up to date with the meetings your sales team members are currently at? If so, there’s an app for that…potentially, if you create it.
The article states that, “The free software, called Google App Inventor for Android (http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/), has been under development for a year. User testing has been done mainly in schools with groups that included sixth graders, high school girls, nursing students and university undergraduates who are not computer science majors.” Sounds like it can’t be too hard to use.
Don’t believe me?
Well you should, because later in the article it’s mentioned that some of the apps can be created in just a manner of minutes.
According to the article, “The goal is to enable people to become creators, not just consumers, in this mobile world,” said Harold Ableson, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is on sabbatical at Google and led the project.” Mr. Ableson then goes on to say, “The Google project is intended to give users, especially young people, a simple tool to let them tinker with smartphone software, much as people have done with computers.”
I don’t know about you, but I like the way Mr. Ableson thinks. Having the ability to create apps that you need, when you need them, will truly be a blessing. In terms of IT Support and IT Mobility, there is so much that can be done with apps that will improve each individual business and its daily processes.
Welcome to the world of game changers (at least in my one-sided mind), Android.
